


You're My Favorite What If

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, post-character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 16:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: When the Winchesters are sent to another alterante universe by mistake, Dean is confronted with everything he lost when Jo died.





	You're My Favorite What If

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a lovely Anon's birthday! I have no idea why you would request something like this, but I hope you enjoy it!

The picture isn’t his and he feels like a thief for keeping it. But he can’t bring himself to get rid of it.

It shows Jo, smiling and radiant for the camera, in a way he rarely saw her when she was alive. It feels as if the Jo he knew was always bickering, either with him or with her mother. She wears a white dress in the picture and holds her hand up to the camera to show the golden band around her ring finger.

With an arm lassoed around her waist and holding her close to his body, a matching band on his finger, there stands Dean. He’s also smiling, but he doesn’t look at the camera. He looks down at Jo, who seems so short and fragile in his arms, with an adoring look in his eyes. As if he is never going to let her go.

That isn’t him. It’s a different man, from a different world. A man who looks like him, who had shared his history and his heartbreaks, but who’d loved Jo to the point of pledging the rest of his life to her.

Dean is still shaken from what he saw in that other world before Rowena and Jack had managed to pull them back out.

 _Time_ , he tells himself, or maybe to his Jo; the one he remembers, the one he lost. _We didn’t have enough time_.

* * *

The last thing they remembered before the light engulfed them was Jack trying to control his powers.

The place where they landed, face first and clumsily, looked almost exactly like Ellen’s roadhouse. After grunting and helping each other stand up, Sam and Dean looked around, dazed and confused, and then at each other as if to confirm that they were both seeing the same thing.

“Where the hell are we?”

“I don’t know.”

There was nowhere else in miles around to go to, so they headed for the roadhouse. Stepping inside of it was like receiving a full on blast from the past: everything was on the same spot as it had been before demons blew the place away, down to the pool table and the dartboard on the wall. The place was empty and heated in the Nebraska sun (Were they even in Nebraska? It was impossible to tell). Except for Ash sleeping on the pool table, the scene was eerily reminiscent of the first time they had walked in there.

“Dude,” Dean muttered. He didn’t need to clarify what he meant, because Sam shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said again.

Before they could decided what the hell were they going to do next, the door behind the bar burst open and suddenly there was the barrel of a shotgun pointing straight at them.

“Who are you?” a deep, gruff, voice demanded to know. “Why are you here?”

“Woah, woah!” Dean exclaimed as both he and Sam raised their hands up and took a step backwards. “Take it easy, pal!”

The man brandishing the shotgun slowly put it down, and it was only then that they recognized him.

He looked like Castiel. He had the same face, but he looked much tired, older even than _their_ Castiel. Dean was reminded of the scruffy way he looked when they were both stuck on Purgatory, with his overgrown beard and his dirty clothes. He wasn’t wearing a trench coat, though, but a faded black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

The strange Castiel stared at them, his familiar blue eyes widening with surprise.

“Sam?” he asked, his mouth hanging open in surprise. “Dean?”

“Castiel, is it you?” Sam asked.

A wide green spread through Castiel’s face as he unlatched the flip top and advanced towards them.

“I don’t believe this!” he muttered as he threw his arms around Sam’s neck and pulled him in for a tight hug. “It’s a miracle!”

He turned and did the same to Dean. His overjoyed expression, however, was soon replaced by a frown of concern that look much more natural in him.

“How are you here?” he asked. “How are you back? The Cage…”

“Cas, slow down,” Sam said. “We’re… we’re not even sure where here is.”

Castiel’s frown became deeper for a second, but then a realization dawned on him and he closed his eyes.

“You’re not Sam and Dean,” he said. “Not… not the ones _I_ knew, at least.”

“Yeah, it would seem so,” Dean said. He tried to sound light, but the disappointment that settled on Castiel’s expression prevented him from doing so. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So… how about you break out a beer and we do some catching up?”

It took some time explaining to Castiel where they came from. He listened to them attentively, nodding now and then.

“The ability to move across the multiverse must come from a very powerful being. Archangels, I believe, are the only ones that can manage to do that. Angels do too, but they are… severely more limited.”

“They?” Sam repeated. “You’re not… not an angel anymore?”

Castiel’s smile was bitter.

“I’m afraid not. It’s fine, though. It was my choice.”

“Your choice?” Dean repeated. “Dude, you were human for maybe five minutes in our world and you hated every second of it!”

Castiel let out a sad laughter and took a long swig from his beer.

“Trust me, I don’t love it in this universe either,” he admitted. “But when I gave up my grace, I knew I was doing it for a good cause. It was a way to protect everything you sacrificed your lives to save.”

“Cas, we don’t… we don’t understand,” Sam said.

Castiel stood up and walked behind the counter. After a second, he came back with what look like a dusty, enormous photography album.

“You said in your world you stopped the Apocalypse with Sam jumping into the Cage with Lucifer,” he said, as he opened the album and started swiftly shifting through the pages. “In this world… well, you jumped in the Cage together. It was… hard for me to accept. It was hard for all of us. But you saved everyone.”

He finally found the picture he was looking for and pulled it out.

Dean felt a knot forming in his throat when he recognized it: it showed them, along with Castiel who still wore his trench coat and suit getup. They were standing with Ellen, Jo and Bobby in his wheelchair. It was the same picture they had taken years ago, before the battle of Carthage. Where they’d lost the Harvelle girls.

Where he’d lost Jo.

“I returned to Heaven after you were gone,” he told them. “Raphael didn’t take the ending of the Apocalypse well and he was decided to try and reopen the cage, get Michael and Lucifer out once more. It lead to many bloody battles up there, until I caught wind of the Tablets.”

“The Tablets?” Sam asked.

“The Word of God. Instructions he left…”

“Yeah, we know about the Tablets,” Dean interrupted him. “How did you…?”

“From the most improbably source,” Castiel said. “A demon came to me and told me about them.”

“Crowley,” Sam guessed.

“No.” Castiel shook his head. “You knew her as Meg.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a surprised look. There was a name they hadn’t heard in a while.

“As it turned out, she had become involved in a bit of a civil war herself, against Crowley, who had seized the throne,” he explained. “She came to me with a deal: I helped her in her war and she would give me the Tablets, itself objects of unimaginable power without even mentioning the sacred spells they contained. Lucifer had stolen them and stashed them in his crypts, you see, and as his lieutenant, she knew where they were.”

“And you took the del.”

“Yes.” Castiel turned his gaze to Sam. “I thought it was a trick at first, but it turned out Meg kept her word. We found the Tablets and… well, I guess neither of us imagined the things that happened right afterwards. When the Word of God was revealed, a Prophet was awakened. He came to us and tried to steal the Tablets. It was almost like a compulsion for him. His name was Kevin Tran, he was a teenage boy.” He stopped and looked at both their faces. “You knew him.”

“Yes. It happened almost exactly that way in our world too.”

“Some details changed,” Dean said.

“Well, then, you know what the Tablets contained,” Castiel said. “There were spells. Powerful spells. And… trials. To close the Gates of Hell.” He made a pause. “And the Gates of Heaven as well.”

“So those were genuine?” Sam asked, impressed. “Because in our world, they… well, they didn’t exactly work like that.”

“Yes, they were genuine. We couldn’t complete the Trials ourselves, though, so I got in contact with an old friend: Jo.”

It was as if a bolt of lightning had stricken Dean.

“Jo… she… she’s alive?”

“She…” Castiel started and then looked up at Dean’s face. He didn’t need to say a word for Castiel to understand it. “Oh, Dean, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Sam stretched a hand to touch Dean’s arms, but he couldn’t feel it through the sudden fog that had fallen over him. He stood up and walked away. Suddenly the Roadhouse’s ambient was oppressive and unbearable. He took a few seconds to recover himself and then returned to the table.

“What happened?” he asked, though he was beginning to suspect the truth.

“She did the Trials. And she succeeded.”

“And it killed her,” Dean completed, his voice breaking.

“Yes.” Castiel lowered his eyes. “I’m so… so sorry, Dean. If I had known…”

Dean grabbed his head as despair washed over him. Even in a world where he had ceased to exist completely, he had somehow managed to find a way to fail her.

“But… wait.” Sam shook his head. “Something doesn’t fit. Meg agreed to do the Trials? Even though they would lock her away too?”

Castiel’s eyes became brighter. It took them a second to understand that he was on the edge of bursting into tears as well.

“You have to understand, all of this didn’t happen overnight. It took years. And Meg… well, her motivations shifted with time.”

“’Cause she fell in love with you,” Sam guessed.

Dean wanted to laugh out loud. The last thing he needed right now was to hear about Meg and Castiel and how they’d been so happy together.

But if Castiel’s sad beam was any indication, that was exactly what he was about to hear.

“We fell for each other,” he told them. “When we found that the Trials included curing a demon and obtaining the grace of a fallen angel, well… we decided a mortal life together was better than an eternity with angels and demons trying to keep us apart. And as she put it, it couldn’t be so shitty if we were together.”

Dean was still too distressed to speak, so Sam continued asking the questions.

“So this is a world with no angels or demons.”

“No. They’re all gone.”

“And the monsters?”

“We still have the occasional ghost. We can’t stop every violent death and every soul refusing to move on. But largely, the most violent monsters have gone extinct. As you can see, there aren’t as many hunters needed these days.” He gestured to the empty roadhouse with a nostalgic grin, before slowly turning to Dean. “Jo… she kept hunting after you were gone. She said it was a way to honor your memory.”

Dean didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know if there was anything he could say, so instead, he took his beer and downed it in one single gulp.

“Do you have something a little stronger in this dumpster?” he croaked.

Castiel stood up again and this time, he returned with a bottle of Scotch and three shot glasses that he filled to the brim. The golden liquid burned down Dean’s throat as he swallowed it. He was thankful for it.

It at least helped him come up with a different question.

“And where’s the missus right now?”

Castiel’s face became so somber he immediately regretted asking.

“She… the body she had possessed… it belonged to a junkie runaway girl,” he explained. His voice became gruffer by the second. “Without Meg’s demonic essence, all of the damage it had sustained came flooding back. Her liver, her kidneys… it all started failing at the same time. The doctors said there might have been some genetic factors as well, a degenerative disease of some kind. Meg refused to stay in the hospital long enough for them to find out.”

His voice trailed off, but again, it was unnecessary for him to go on.

“Cas, I’m sorry.”

Castiel took in a shuddering breath.

“We had a few good years. They were less than what I was hoping for, but… a few good years with her on earth were still better than an eternity in Heaven by myself.” He poured another shot for himself and drank it down without breathing. “And besides, when she died, her soul was cleansed. She died a human. She’s in Heaven now, which I believe it’s something she always wanted. I’m going to join her one of these days, sooner or later, and she said ‘Make it later’. So… I’m making it later.”

He shrugged, as if to say ‘What else can I do?’

It was such a miserable existence that Dean suddenly felt the uncontrollable need to escape that place. Not just from the roadhouse, but from that entire universe. Yes, it was nice that there were no more angels or demons fucking up the place and that monsters didn’t kill as many people. But seeing Castiel so alone and miserable, learning that even after surviving the battle of Carthage Jo still hadn’t lived a very long life… it was all too much for him to bear.

“Well, this has been… a visit,” he mumbled.

“Dean,” Sam said, in that reproachful way he did when he thought Dean was saying something rude or inappropriate.

“But we should start looking for a way to go back to our own universe.”

“Oh.” Castiel couldn’t hide the disappointment in his expression, but he nodded despite it. “Of course. Hum… wouldn’t you… wouldn’t you like to see Will before you go though?”

“Will?”

“William,” Castiel said, as if that clarified anything. The brothers stared blankly at him. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is he called something different in your world?”

“We… we don’t know who you’re talking about, Cas,” Sam clarified.

Castiel opened and closed his mouth.

“I… I shouldn’t have mentioned him,” he said in the end. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, you already mentioned him,” Dean said. He suspected he wasn’t going to like the answer, but he had to ask anyway: “So who’s this William dude?”

Castiel lowered his eyes to the album. He started shifting the pages again, until he found two other pictures. The first one was the one Dean took with him when they left that universe. The other showed a blonde kid, with big green eyes and a space between his teeth, smiling to the camera for what seemed to be a school picture.

“William Harvelle-Winchester,” Castiel explained. “You and Jo… well, you insisted that you should get married when you found out she was pregnant, said you wanted to make things right by the both of them. But you didn’t have a chance to meet him.”

If he had cut open Dean’s chest and squeezed his heart with his bare hands, it wouldn’t have hurt more. Dean stood up and walked around the small space in the roadhouse, only to sit back down again, because his knees were about to give out.

Jo and him… all the things they could have had together, if he hadn’t lost her, if he had tried to understand her feelings earlier…

Castiel kept talking, but Dean could only make out some words here and there:

“He’s turning ten this summer… lives in Sioux Falls with Ellen and Bobby… he’s a straight A’s student and he plays baseball…”

“No!” Dean almost screamed at the top of his lungs. “Stop! Cas, just… stop!”

He was choking up. He hated that universe. It was a paradise, compared to the Apocalypse world they had seen, but he hated it.

“You’re telling me Jo went ahead with the trials even when she knew they would kill her? And that she would have to leave her… our…? Why did you make her do it?!”

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed, standing up and putting himself between Castiel and Dean. It was probably a good idea. Dean was two seconds away from losing it and he didn’t know what he would do when that happened.

Castiel looked hurt.

“I begged her to stop. When we knew it would kill her to finish the Trials, I begged her… but she wouldn’t listen to me. She said she was doing this for Will.” He stopped, breathing in deeply as if he two was about to break down. “If Raphael… if he’d succeeded in reopening the Cage, Michael and Lucifer would have needed new vessels. Will is the last one of your bloodline. Both Heaven and Hell would have been fighting to take him for themselves, to groom him into saying yes when he was old and strong enough. Jo wasn’t willing to let that happened.”

“But she was willing to leave a kid without his mom?” Dean argued, angrily. He didn’t even know who he was supposed to be angry with anymore. “A kid that never knew his dad?”

“He knows you’re a hero,” Castiel argued, bluntly. “And that his mom was a hero, too.”

The words rang hollow to Dean’s ears. It sounded like bullshit Castiel told himself in order to justify the deaths that he’d had to endure.

But when Castiel stood up and walked up to him, probably knowing he was risking finding himself on the receiving end of one of Dean’s punches, his eyes shone with determination.

“The fact that your son has to grow up without his parents is a tragedy, yes. But thanks to what you, and Sam, and Jo did, that might the first and last tragedy he has to face. And there are so many less tragedies in the world thanks to your sacrifice, Dean. That isn’t nothing.”

“It’s not fair!” Dean shouted. Sam’s hand on his shoulder kept him in place, but he still felt like he was spiraling.

“No, it’s not,” Castiel agreed. “But it is what it is.”

He could have said it was also not fair that he was alone in an abandoned roadhouse, that he had sacrificed everything he once was on the off-chance that it would keep the entire planet safe. It was not fair that he had watched his friends die one by one. That it was not fair that he had lost Meg.

But he didn’t, despite the horrible things Dean had accused him of. It was one of those times that Dean felt guiltily that he didn’t deserve Castiel as a friend.

And that he also hadn’t always been fair with him.

He was so busy trying to keep himself from screaming and breaking stuff that he barely noticed it when the golden light started glowing against one of Castiel’s walls. The rift between the universes was barely noticeable, but he still felt a tug in his chest when he looked at it. As if it was calling him home.

“I assume that’s for you,” Castiel said. His voice, once again, sounded infinitely sad.

“Yes,” Sam said. His lower lip was trembling, and even though he was far more composed than Dean, he was still affected by the whole experience. “We should… we should go, Cas. We can’t know how long they’re going to keep it open.”

“Wait.” Castiel went back to the table and picked up two of the pictures he’d shown them: the one with all of them the night before Carthage and the one from Dean and Jo’s wedding. “Take these with you.” Once they’d grabbed them, Castiel clasped a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’m sorry this visit was so bleak. But it was really good to see you, boys.”

There was nothing left to say afterwards.

Even as they stepped into the rift, Dean couldn’t help but to look over his shoulder. He caught one last glimpse of Castiel, standing in his roadhouse, waving at them with a forced smile and tears streaming down his cheeks.

* * *

They refused to answer the questions Jack and Rowena had about the universe they’d gone to. Well, Sam did, mostly, because Dean was still too upset to speak. He went straight to his room and closed the door behind him. He couldn’t talk about anything right then.

He emerged several hours later, when he felt like he couldn’t keep crying or pacing around.

It’s very late in the night now and the bunker is silent as he sits in the library with a glass of Scotch, staring at the pictures the other Castiel gave them. Even though he didn’t offered them Will’s picture (Dean figures that would have been like rubbing salt in the wound), he can still see his face perfectly when he closes his eyes: the freckles on the bridge of his nose, his smile that looked like Jo’s.

And he can’t help the feeling of loss deep in his gut. He knew – he knew how Jo had felt about him, for years. He’d never wondered what would’ve happened if he had given himself the chance to reciprocate those feelings. Perhaps because he knew the answer would’ve been just as painful as this was.

He’s mourning everything that could have been. Perhaps (though he doubts it), one day he could meet a woman, have some rugrats and whatnot. But it won’t be _that_ woman. And it won’t be _that_ kid.

There’s a movement by the corner of his eye, and when he looks, he sees Castiel, the Castiel he knows well. The angel is silent as he moves a chair aside and sits at the other side of the table from him.

“Sam told me,” he says simply.

Dean figures he doesn’t need to elaborate anymore. He still tries to quip:

“This whole travelling through alternate universes can give you an identity crisis, huh?”

Castiel doesn’t laugh at his joke. He’s not going to let Dean get away with even a little bit of levity when he knows it’s not going to help either of them. Dean knows perhaps it’s the healthy thing to do, but he still resents him a bit for it.

“What did Sam tell you, exactly?” Dean asks, with a deep sigh.

“That you married Jo in that universe,” Castiel says, pronouncing her name with the reverence he owes to the departed. “And I was with Meg, at least for a little while.”

“Yeah. We were both hopeless romantics over there, apparently.”

Castiel says nothing to that. Dean downs his whiskey and thinks about what’s fair and what’s not. He decides it’s time he fixes something he should have solved a long time ago.

“Listen, Cas, about Meg… the night we recovered the Angel Tablet, she…”

“She’s dead,” Castiel says, bluntly. “I know.”

“Oh.” Dean blinks, baffled. “You know?”

“I tried summoning her many times afterwards. She either didn’t care about our… friendship as much as I had hoped or she couldn’t come because she was dead. I… don’t know which option would’ve hurt less.” Castiel makes a pause, as if he’s considering his own question. “This one hurts a lot, certainly.”

“You never talked about it.”

“You never talk about Jo.”

Dean figures that’s fair enough. He pours another drink and slides it towards Castiel. It’s not nearly enough to get him drunk, he knows, but the angel downs it anyway.

“I… I should have mentioned it earlier. I mean, you know I was no fan of Meg, but I know she meant a lot to you.”

It’s the closest thing he can muster to an apology and he knows it’s pretty shitty as far as apologies go. Castiel accepts it anyway, with one of those silent nods that seem to tell so much. He looks at his glass and then slides back to Dean.

“I’m… I’m looking for her name,” he confesses. “Her real name. It’s hard work. There’s not many people who knew her that well and the ones who did… well, they’re demons and they’re not exactly very chatty around me.”

“Why are you looking for her name?” Dean asks, frowning, but it only takes him a second to realize the answer. “To get her back.”

“Now I know that demons and angels don’t simply vanish upon dying… I know that her soul is in the Empty,” Castiel tells him. “But I need to know her real name to stir her awake. Or maybe ask Jack to do it, if I’m not powerful enough.”

Dean ponders about this for a moment. Knowing what he knows now, he probably would try to do the same.

“Well, if you need any help with that, man, you can count on us,” he says. He fills his glass again and raises is if to toast for Castiel’s health. “Maybe one of us can still get a happy ending after all.”


End file.
